


Daylight Won't Remember Her

by victoria_p (musesfool)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Case Fic, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-06-09
Updated: 2009-06-09
Packaged: 2017-10-03 22:23:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,512
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22856
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/musesfool/pseuds/victoria_p
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean would rather be in California, ogling hot chicks in bikinis and drinking fruity drinks with umbrellas in them, not broiling on the blacktop in New Mexico, looking for dead girls.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Daylight Won't Remember Her

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to fleurdeleo, amberlynne, snacky, and mousapelli for all the brainstorming and handholding they did on this story. And thanks to luzdeestrellas for betaing in addition to everything else. All errors and wtfery are mine.

It was a small fire--Dean hadn't realized there was still fluid in the lighter--and neither of them were hurt, though Sam's lips were pressed tight and he looked like he had a headache (or a hissyfit) coming on. The only thing damaged had been their cigar box of fake ID. The laminated badges were blackened around their warped edges and completely unusable. The room still smelled of burnt plastic and singed hair.

"Why can't we call Chang?" Dean asked, tossing the box down in disgust.

"He went straight."

Dean raised an eyebrow in surprise.

Sam gave a small, startled laugh. "Okay, poor choice of words. He got out of the business, moved up to Napa with his boyfriend. I think they own a winery now."

"Huh. We should visit." Sam snorted and Dean felt a tiny thrill of triumph. He did a quick run through of their contacts. Not many of them were still alive, and of the few who were, fewer still were on speaking terms with them at the moment. "How about Ruczinski?"

"He's doing ten to fifteen in Oklahoma."

"Shit."

"Yeah."

"I guess we're doing it the old-fashioned way, then." Dean ran a hand over his chin and sighed. That meant he'd have to shave.

*

None of the pictures they took with either of their phones had that official look so necessary to making convincing fake ID. It didn't help that Dean spent fifteen minutes doing the Blue Steel, and only stopped when Sam threatened to set his few remaining tapes on fire. Sam had made that threat more than once over the years, but for the first time, Dean took him seriously--he had that pissed off look on his face that only Dad had ever really been able to put there. Now that Dean thought about it, it made him look a lot like Dad: jaw clenched and eyes narrowed, and voice gone low and dangerous.

Dean stopped fooling around, but the pictures were still shitty, unusable even for the barely passable fake IDs he made himself.

"Walgreens," Sam said, deleting the last set off his phone with a disgusted look on his face.

Dean knew he should say something, but he wasn't sure what--he still wasn't used to Sam being so hard-faced and grim all the time. It reminded him of Dad the first few months after Sam had left for school, though this time he knew it was his fault. He never should have said anything, should have kept on pretending he was fine, but he'd let himself be convinced by Anna and her fancy talk, had opened up to Sam and hoped for his forgiveness, forgetting that no good could ever come of that. Sam's forgiveness had always been hard-won, and Dean knew that this time, he didn't deserve it.

*

Walgreens was crowded with after-work shoppers picking up prescriptions and shampoo and last minute Christmas decorations, and if Dean heard "Holly Jolly Christmas" one more time, someone was going down. There was a woman on line in front of them getting her family photo Christmas cards printed, and Dean remembered the fake family pictures in his djinn-engineered fantasy world, matching sweaters and Dad smiling in a Santa hat. He could feel the headache starting, a dull throb behind his right eye, and he pinched the bridge of his nose, trying to will it away. It didn't help that the guy behind the counter was flirting with the woman in such an enthusiastic, aw shucks way that Dean thought he might puke from the insincerity of it.

"You're a model right? Or you were before you got married?" the guy was saying.

The woman didn't seem to notice the snow job; she laughed and flipped her hair. "Not exactly."

"You should have been. I can tell." He handed over the envelope of pictures and gave her an assessing once-over at odds with his charming smile. "I do some amateur photography."

"Thanks," the woman said, putting her wallet and her pictures in her bag. She was definitely MILF material, Dean thought, but the guy was laying it on way too thick, and she clearly wasn't interested.

The guy turned to Dean and his smile was gone. "What can I do for you?" he asked in the least helpful tone of voice Dean had heard since Sam grew out of being a teenager.

"Passport pictures," Dean said, leaning his elbow on the counter and giving the guy a knowing look.

The guy grunted and came out from behind the counter, camera in hand. He pulled down a white screen to cover the shelves of cereal boxes and said, "Stand on the X." Clearly, Dean and Sam didn't merit the false charm the guy had poured all over the lady customers.

Dean looked down and saw the X marked in black electrical tape on the floor. He grinned his best Steve McQueen grin and the guy said, "Stand up straight."

Dean rolled his eyes and straightened his shoulders, and tried not to blink when the flash went off.

When it was done, he said, "I'm gonna go find some Advil or something." Sam nodded and stepped onto the X, shoulders straightening and face falling into the solemn lines of his g-man persona. Dean tried not to think about Sam as a Fed, how good he'd have been at it, with his law degree and his determination and his big giant brain.

He was tempted by the sleeping aids, but knew they wouldn't help--his nightmares were stronger than anything science could dream up, and he'd just end up fuzzy-headed in addition to exhausted, unable to come up alert and shooting if the situation demanded it. Instead, he picked up the two hundred and fifty capsule size of generic ibuprofen and the biggest bag of peanut M&amp;Ms they had. He found Sam already on line, the pictures tucked into his jacket pocket and a six-pack of C batteries for the flashlights in his hand.

They paid cash and headed to the nearest Kinkos to scan the pictures, the dull throb behind Dean's right eye spreading as he squinted into the weak, late afternoon sunlight. He grabbed a bottle of water from under the seat and tossed back three pills, then followed Sam into the brightly lit copy shop. They had work to do.

*

Dean grimaced and tugged on his tie--the thing was tight as a noose, and thanks to Alastair, he knew intimately what that felt like. He shook himself, forcing the memories away as Sam came out of the bathroom, looking more at home in his suit than Dean ever felt.

"You've got some toothpaste," he said, pointing at his own chin and suppressing the urge to lick his thumb and clean Sam's face like somebody's granny.

Sam scowled and rubbed at the dried toothpaste at the corner of his mouth. "Okay?"

"Yeah." Dean smirked at him, not feeling it but knowing it would rile Sam up. "Why don't you take the first vic and I'll handle the second, and we can meet at the hospital to talk to the third?"

"No."

"What?"

"No. We're not splitting up."

"You can get a rental. A nice little silver hybrid. Or maybe a Smart Car." He grinned for real at the image that conjured up and pulled out the credit card that matched the name on Sam's fake ID. "It's on Uncle Sam. Or, you know, Syd Barrett."

"I said no." And there it was again, the resemblance to Dad at his most stubborn and unyielding, demanding obedience without question. Dean had always given it to Dad when he'd used that tone, and even Sam had usually toed the line as well, but hearing Sam use it raised Dean's hackles.

"What makes you think you're in charge?" Dean couldn't hide the anger in his voice, though he tried to cover it with a thin veneer of humor.

Sam looked him dead in the eye and gave him a tight grin. "I have the keys to the car." He raised his hand and jangled the keys, which Dean had thought were safely in his pants pocket.

"Fucker." That was bad. Dean hadn't even felt him lift them.

"Sore loser."

"Shut up."

"Make me."

Dean sighed. Some days, he really felt like he was getting too old for this shit. "Whatever." His capitulation didn't even win a smile from Sam, and he sighed again in resignation. They hadn't even gotten started and it felt like they'd been on this job too long.

*

"I swear there was a girl there." Mr. Calaveras shook his head, then closed his eyes, face going ashen. He probably had a concussion on top of his other injuries, Dean thought, wincing a little in sympathy. "That's why I swerved, but the brakes--I don't know. The cops say there wasn't a girl, but I know what I saw."

Dean glanced at Sam, who tightened his lips and shrugged a little. "Was she wearing white?" Sam asked, pen poised over his notebook.

"What? No. She had on jeans and a red sweatshirt. Her hair was up in pigtails. She couldn't have been more than eighteen."

"But no body was found, and no other eyewitness puts a girl of that description at the scene," Sam clarified.

"I didn't hit her," Calaveras said. "She just kind of..._ay dios mio_, it sounds crazy, I know, but she flickered in and out. Like a--what do you call it? Like Princess Leia in Star Wars."

Dean gave the guy a knowing half-grin. "A hologram."

"Right, right. A hologram." Calaveras rubbed his forehead. "The cops think I'm crazy, or drunk, but I know what I saw."

"Well, the FBI is taking you seriously, Mr. Calaveras." Dean put on his best concerned g-man face. "Thank you for your time. We'll be in touch."

Dean waited until they were back in the car to say, "You think it's got anything to do with that missing girl, the one on the news?"

"She only went missing last Sunday. First accident happened two weeks ago."

Dean grunted, conceding the point. He tapped his pen against his mouth, thinking. "Angry spirit?"

Sam moved his head in a yes-no-maybe gesture. "Maybe she was in an accident and doesn't know she's dead."

"Like Molly McNamara?"

Sam shrugged, looking a little surprised that Dean remembered the name. "We won't know until we get out there."

"Yeah." Dean grimaced, not looking forward to working on the highway in the mid-afternoon heat. His shirt was already sticking to his back, and he didn't even want to know what Sammy's pit stains looked like. Laundry day was going to be even ranker than usual. "Freaking desert."

"You were the one bitching about the weather in Milwaukee. I thought you'd be happy to be down here where it's sunny and warm."

"South Beach, Sam." Sam frowned; he'd refused to set foot back in Florida after that thing with the Trickster. Dean understood, even if he didn't always act like it. "Cabo. Dude, I'd take San Diego right now." Sam gave him a surprised glance; Dean tended to avoid California the way Sam now avoided Florida. He shrugged a shoulder, tried to figure out what he'd have said before he went to hell, and summoned up the necessary bravado to sell it. "I wanna be someplace where I can ogle hot chicks in bikinis and drink fruity drinks with umbrellas in them. Not," he waved a hand around, "broiling on the blacktop in New Mexico, looking for dead girls."

Sam laughed, which was something, at least. "Yeah, well, it's no picnic for me either, Dean. I'm the one who has to smell you after you've been broiling."

"I smell good, Sammy. You're the one who needs to invest in some extra strength Secret."

Sam flipped him off, and Dean thought things felt almost normal, or as close as they ever were these days.

"Come on, we've still got two other accident victims to speak to. Hopefully they'll both have air conditioning."

*

The first accident victim, Javier Ramos, had had a similar experience. He lived with his mother, and Dean wouldn't wonder what that was like. Mrs. Ramos crossed herself numerous times during the short interview, and Dean wanted to tell her not to bother, that God didn't really give a damn about her anymore than he did anyone else, but he didn't. He clamped his teeth together and swallowed the angry words, stretching his lips into the closest thing to an impersonal yet concerned smile he could manage.

Javier Ramos had been afraid he was going to be hauled off for DUI, even though his breathalyzer was clean this time. "I can't get a break with the cops, you know?"

"I know," Dean said sympathetically, until Sam nudged him and he remembered he was supposed to be a cop. Or an FBI agent, anyway. "We understand. You weren't drinking. And you weren't the only one to see the girl. Was she dark-haired, about eighteen, and wearing a red sweatshirt?"

"How did you know?"

"We've spoken with another accident victim, who saw her, too."

Mrs. Ramos hugged her son, relieved smile on her face. "Ay, mijo, I knew you weren't drunk," she said.

Javier looked both sheepish and pleased, tucking his face against his mother's shoulder for a brief moment, and Dean had to look away. He purposefully avoided Sam's gaze, as well.

*

The second victim, Bridget Wellington, didn't want to speak with them. "I told the police everything I know," she said, trying to shut the door on them. "It was just one of those things."

But Sam put on the big puppy-dog eyes and the earnest voice. "Please, ma'am. It could really help us figure out how to make that stretch of the road safer."

She relented with a sigh. "You might as well come in, then. But please don't tell my daughter I've spoken to you about it. She thinks I'm too old to drive and this has just given her more ammunition." She huffed indignantly. "I've been driving for forty-five years. Taught her and her kids how to drive."

Dean tried on his best charming the old ladies grin. "We won't say a word, ma'am. Our lips are sealed."

She gave him a smile and led the way into the house. "Can you believe this weather? How am I supposed to get in the holiday spirit with this heat wave going on?"

"Heat wave?" Sam asked, like he wasn't sweating his ass off in his suit and tie.

"You don't think it's this hot here all the time, do you?"

"It _is_ the desert," Dean said, following the cool air into the living room. He casually situated himself in front of the air conditioner and took a look around. There were a lot of ugly knickknacks in a display case--childlike figurines with big heads and anime eyes that seemed to follow him--and the furniture and curtains were a riot of pink and yellow flowers. A small group of framed photos sat on an end table--Mrs. Wellington with her grandkids, he guessed, two little girls with blonde braids and braces, and an older boy, skinny and tall and slouching to hide it. He reminded Dean of Sam at sixteen. Dean turned back to the conversation.

"Sure, but it's December," she said. "It's usually quite nice, down in the fifties during the day, cooler at night."

"Huh." He glanced at Sam, who was wearing a thoughtful frown. "How long has it been unseasonably warm?"

"Couple of weeks now. Really kills the holiday spirit."

"The night of your accident," Sam said, tilting his head. He was obviously trying to get the conversation back on track, since FBI agents wouldn't be interested in the change in the weather, but Dean made a mental note to check it out when they got back to the motel.

"Oh, yes. The temperature moderated, but you could still see the heat coming up off the blacktop. That's what the police said I saw. A mirage. Though why I would see a teenage girl instead of Omar Sharif or Peter O'Toole, I don't know."

"They didn't accuse you of drinking?" Dean asked sharply.

Mrs. Wellington looked confused. "Of course not. Why would they?"

"No reason," Sam said, giving Dean a warning glance. "No reason at all."

*

It was easier to scout around in daylight, so when they were done with Bridget Wellington, they headed back out to the interstate, to the stretch of highway where all the accidents had happened.

"Well, shit." Dean put the car in park and glared out the windshield at the array of standard issue sedans and yellow crime scene tape that marked off the area on the shoulder of I-25. A tall, black woman in an FBI windbreaker was talking on a cell phone while groups of cops and crime scene techs milled around.

"Guess we're not going in as FBI today." Sam's voice was wry and his mouth was curved in a rueful half-grin. "Reporters?"

Dean raised an eyebrow at him. "They'll give us the runaround if they think we're reporters."

"Maybe not. We could be from a respectable magazine, instead of a tabloid." Dean frowned and opened his mouth, but Sam beat him to it. "You're just pissed you put the suit on, and you didn't need to."

"It's not even noon yet and it's a hundred fucking degrees out there, Sammy. You might enjoy wearing a noose, but this is not my kind of dressing up."

Sam held up a hand. "I don't need to know any more than that, Dean. Thanks."

Dean snorted and loosened his tie, slipping it over his head and shoving it in his pocket. Then he shrugged out of his jacket. Next, he rolled up the sleeves of his white shirt, any crispness long gone from several wearings, even before the ridiculous heat. They needed to do some laundry soon. Maybe stay in a place that had little irons in the closet for once, and hell, mints on the pillows, too. "Let's go."

Sam stopped to talk to the techs, while Dean headed right for the FBI agent.

"What are you boys doing out here?" she asked, flipping her phone closed and giving him a skeptical look. She was younger than he'd expected, and prettier, with high cheekbones, a wide, mobile mouth, and hair that was clipped close to her skull. She looked cool and crisp even though she had to be sweating underneath her windbreaker.

Dean pinned on his fuck-the-authorities grin and eyed the ID badge hanging around her neck. "We're with Newsweek, Special Agent Swofford," he said, waving his pad and pen like they were some kind of identification. "Can I call you Georgia?"

"No." She crossed her arms and arched an eyebrow over the dark lenses of her sunglasses, clearly not charmed. "You haven't answered my question."

Dean shrugged. "Heard about the accidents, thought there might be a story in it. Road rage, maybe, but it looks like you've got something more complicated." He pointed his pen at the area where three techs were crouched, brushing dust off the white gleam of bone.

"Road rage?"

He didn't bristle at the disbelief in her voice. It was a terrible theory--didn't fit the facts--and they both knew it. "We haven't had a chance to talk to all the victims, but there've been a lot of accidents along this stretch of I-25 in the past few weeks. We were thinking--"

"Please don't," she said. "I wouldn't want you to strain yourself."

"Wow, hostile much?"

Swofford looked like she wanted to smile but wouldn't let herself. Dean felt a small flush of triumph. "Look, Bernstein--"

"I'm Woodward," Dean said, grinning again, more naturally this time. He inclined his head towards Sam, who was listening intently to one of the techs. "He's Bernstein."

"You're very cute. Now get the hell away from my crime scene before I have you arrested."

"Crime scene?" He played dumb. Some women dug that, and some cops liked to show off.

Swofford raised an eyebrow. "I thought the yellow tape and the swarm of federal agents gave it away." She shook her head and sucked her teeth in mock sadness. "I guess they've lowered the standards at Newsweek. So much for the noble profession of journalism."

Dean huffed a laugh. "Fine. Off the record. These accidents aren't just accidents?"

Swofford started walking back towards the blacktop. "What do you know about Lisa Harmon?"

Dean blinked, taken aback at the turn in the conversation, and followed her. It took him a few seconds to place the name. "The girl who went missing in Las Cruces a few days ago?"

"Yes."

"That's about all I know. You think it's related to this?" He glanced over at where the techs were bagging the bones. "Those bones look like they've been here a while. Even the coyotes wouldn't have left them that clean this quickly."

"Unfortunately, Lisa Harmon isn't the first girl to disappear in the vicinity, Mr. Woodward."

"Just the first white one," said one of the techs as she walked by, Sam at her heels.

"You think it's, what? Some kind of serial killer? Got some kind of Silence of the Lambs type deal going down out here?"

"The FBI is not prepared to comment at this time, Mr. Woodward, or whatever your name actually is."

"Gilmour," he said. "And my partner's name is Barrett." He ripped a sheet out of his notebook and scrawled his number onto it. They were going to have to print up a new set of business cards soon. "Give me a call when the FBI is ready to talk." He gave her another roguish grin. "Or if you'd like to have a drink and take your mind off the case."

"You're quite the optimist, Mr. Gilmour."

"Someone's gotta be."

Agent Swofford's mouth twitched again, and Dean decided to take his victory and get out. He went back to the car and waited. He was sure Sam would have more information from the techs, who enjoyed talking about their work way more than the suits usually liked.

"They're working the Lisa Harmon case," Sam said once they were back on the road again. "They think these bones they've recovered are related--probably another young woman."

"Which goes along with what the accident victims have said."

"Yeah. But Lisa Harmon didn't disappear out here. She was last seen in town, and her car is still there. And she's blonde. Our ghost is a brunette."

"Huh. Let's see what we can find out about other missing girls, and maybe beat the Feds at their own game."

"You think the weather?" Sam said, dragging a hand through his hair.

Dean sighed. "Yeah."

Neither one of them mentioned demons or seals, but Dean knew Sam was thinking it, same as he was.

They checked out of the no-tell motel they'd been staying in and drove around looking for something that seemed more like the kind of place a couple of reporters from Newsweek might actually stay. Dean pulled the car in at the Motel 6 about five miles out of Las Cruces, and checked them in under the name Gilmour, just in case Agent Swofford started nosing around. Or took him up on his offer of drinks. He didn't think it was likely, but he'd had more improbable hookups in his time.

Once they were in the room (no pillow mints, but there was an iron hanging on the wall in the closet and a coffeemaker with complimentary packets of fancy coffee next to the ice bucket), Dean turned the old air conditioning unit on high, shucked his suit, splashed some water on his face and hair, and dried off his sweaty chest with a t-shirt, which he then pulled over his head. Sam shook his head, frowning, but didn't say anything except, "I'm gonna have a quick shower."

Dean nodded and started pulling things he needed out of his duffle. When he was done with that, he sat down at the laptop and started looking at the local weather for the last few weeks. He found articles discussing record high temperatures for Las Cruces and the surrounding areas, but nothing about freak lightning storms or cattle mutilations, and nobody's bathroom faucet had run with blood or any other kind of apocalyptic hooha, so maybe it was just global warming after all.

Sam came out of the shower, hair dripping onto the towel draped around his neck, and shot Dean a surprised look, which Dean ignored.

"No signs of demonic activity in the area," he said. "Just more proof that Al Gore is one clever son of a bitch."

Sam laughed as he toweled his hair. "Your crush is showing," he said, hanging the towel on the doorknob and getting dressed.

Dean ignored that as well. He waited until Sam's head popped clear of the collar of his t-shirt and said, "Okay, hit me."

Sam's smile disappeared, and he stood behind Dean as Dean got ready to type. "At least three girls have disappeared over the last month--Blanca Gutierrez, Bernice Vega, and Incarnacion Herrera." Dean smirked at Sam's pronunciation, though his wasn't much better, despite three years of high school Spanish. "The first two are from Las Cruces, but Herrera is from Truth or Consequences. According to Janis the crime scene tech, she was visiting her aunt and uncle for a few days, and then she was supposed to be heading home. She'd been on vacation down on South Padre Island."

Dean nodded and started searching the local newspapers while Sam hovered. "There's not much," he said, grimacing.

Sam frowned down at him, reaching for the laptop. "Let me--"

"I know how to use a search engine, Sam."

"Have you looked at the Spanish papers?"

Dean grunted; he hadn't, but now he would. "You gonna translate? Or are we trusting Babelfish on this one?" The last time they'd done that, things had not gone well. He was pretty sure Sam still had the scars.

Sam grimaced. "I've got a Spanish-English dictionary. We'll figure it out."

They spent the next hour or two muddling through various articles in Spanish in the local ethnic papers. Dean put CNBC on--he knew he wasn't the only one nursing a secret crush on Maria Bartiromo--but the news was all about the bones found by the side of the highway, with the anchors speculating on whether there was a connection between them and the missing girl, interspersed with footage of Lisa Harmon's mother pleading into the camera for her daughter's kidnapper to let her go. There was a brief press conference with the FBI offering no comment at this time, beyond admitting that more than one set of remains had been dug up at the site, and they were in the process of identifying them.

Dean pushed the laptop away in disgust and looked at Sam, who was staring at his Spanish-English dictionary like it held the keys to the universe. "What?"

"Let's say those bones belong to one or more of these girls," Sam said. "What if she's trying to tell those people what killed her?"

"So the ghost is a result of whatever beastie is actually doing the killing and," Dean wrinkled his nose, remembering the gleaming white of the bones, clean of all flesh, "eating?"

"Seems likely. But without getting a good look at the bones, not to mention the files of the missing girls..." Sam trailed off, shrugging a shoulder.

"We're gonna get a look at the bones, Sam. We'll make like we're gonna burn 'em, and she'll come after us. You can do your ghost whisperer thing and find out what's taking these girls, and then we'll kill it."

"Just like that?"

"Easy as pie." Dean's stomach rumbled and he wondered if there would be pie for dessert tonight. Peach, maybe, or cherry. So much had changed since he'd come back from hell, but pie was still pie. It was reassuring, in a way. He made a little Homer Simpson noise. "Mmm...pie."

Sam looked up then, face set in that earnest expression that never failed to win over skeptical librarians and social workers (and, frequently, Dean, though he'd deny it if asked). "I think it's a bad idea."

"What?" Dean said, startled. "Since when is pie a bad idea?"

Sam huffed in annoyance. "Not the pie, Dean. Your plan."

"It's a perfectly good plan," Dean argued. "We've come up with way worse."

Sam pursed his lips and Dean thought maybe that wasn't the best argument he'd ever used. Before he could come up with a better one, though, Sam was off. "We'd have to break into the morgue to do it, and I don't know if you've noticed, but Feds are thick on the ground here at the moment, not to mention the press--the real press--and I just, I think it's a bad idea."

"It's nothing we haven't done a hundred times, Sam, Feds or no Feds. It's just a little B&amp;E and a salt and burn. Easy-peasy."

Sam frowned. "We've been hunting non-stop for the past few weeks, and before that--" He looked away, and Dean figured he was remembering his confession, his fear of Alastair, and how fucked up everything was. "I think maybe we should ease off on this until the Feds are gone, maybe take a few days rest and--"

Dean shoved away from the table and stood. "And what?"

"We can come back in a couple of weeks. When the media frenzy has died down."

"What the fuck do you care about the Feds or the media frenzy? The cops think we're dead and people are in danger."

"People are having minor car accidents, Dean. Nobody's died yet."

"Except for whoever those bones belong to. How many girls are missing? We know the police can't catch this thing."

"And we don't know that we can."

"You were the one who picked this hunt. You were the one who said we had to come down here and--" It all clicked into place then, and Dean felt sick to his stomach. "Fuck, Sam. You picked this hunt because you thought it would be cakewalk."

"Yeah, I did." Sam stood as well, nothing apologetic about him. The earnest look had been replaced with an angry one, brows drawn together and jaw clenched tight. "Your head's not in the game, Dean. You're tired and you're sloppy--I took the car keys right out of your pocket before and you didn't even notice. And you almost _set yourself on fire_ yesterday, Dean."

"I didn't--That wasn't--I was just dicking around." It sounded weak even to Dean's ears.

But Sam ignored him, voice rising in anger, though Dean could hear the fear running beneath it. "So pardon me if maybe I don't want to go busting into a morgue full of Feds--when it's entirely possible they'll figure out who we are and start gunning for us again--let alone go hunting some unknown creature that likes to _eat_ its victims, while I'm worrying about whether or not you're paying attention, or if you're going to start freaking out or having flashbacks or, I don't know, _dicking around_."

Dean sucked in a breath like he'd been punched hard in the gut, bile climbing the back of his throat, but he swallowed it down and forced himself to stay calm, though his hands were curled into fists. Sam was angry because he was scared and he _hated_ being scared. Always had.

"Sam," he tried for a light, coaxing tone, but it came out more like a whine, "come on." He scrubbed a hand over his mouth and tried to marshal his arguments. "If we salt and burn the bones now, we'll at least take care of the ghost and the accidents. If we wait, they're gonna take them away and lock them up as evidence, or give them back to the families for burial, and we'll never get our hands on them, not for salting and burning, and not for figuring out whatever it is that's doing this." He started pacing, always better at thinking when he was in motion. "You know the accidents are only going to escalate, especially if there's more than one ghost out there. And who knows how many girls have disappeared already? Do you really want to hear about another one on the news a month from now and know that we could have stopped it?"

Sam's shoulders slumped. He closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose, and Dean knew he was weakening. "No, Dean, I don't. But I also don't want to see you get hurt--"

"I'm fine."

Sam overrode him. "Or worse, because you're trying to do too much. You're not Superman, Dean. Right now, you're not even _Aquaman_, okay?" Dean opened his mouth and Sam held up a hand. "Don't. Don't even say it."

Dean grunted in frustration, but refrained from saying, I'm the goddamned Batman, mostly because he thought Sam might actually take a swing at him if he did, and while he wouldn't blame Sam, it wouldn't help him win this argument. Instead, he said, "How about this? We interview the girls' families, and then tonight, we go to the morgue and take care of the ghost problem--you can get your geek on and read the forensic reports, check out the bones, whatever. And then when the Fibbies clear out, we can come back and take down whatever it is that's killing the girls. The Feds won't stick around for long. They never do."

Sam pushed a hand through his hair and exhaled noisily. "Fine, but if it looks like it's going south, we get the hell out of there. No heroics."

"Sure, Sammy. Whatever you say." He turned to start collecting the gear they would need, though they wouldn't be heading out for hours yet.

Sam grabbed his arm, made Dean turn around and face him. "I mean it, Dean. Promise me."

Dean nodded, pleased to have gotten Sam to give in even that much, and said, "I promise."

*

"It's dinner time," Dean said, trying to ignore his rumbling stomach as they walked up the driveway to the Gutierrez house. "Nobody's gonna wanna talk to us."

Sam shot him a dirty look and brushed the sweaty hair off his forehead. "You're the one who wanted to interview the families." He rang the bell and they waited. Dean could hear a dog barking, but no other movement. He pulled out the EMF meter and circled the house, but there was nothing unusual in the reading. He wasn't sure why he'd expected there to be. They rang the bell again and waited a few more minutes before giving up and moving on.

Incarnacion Herrera's aunt and uncle refused to talk to them when they said they were with the press.

At Bernice Vega's house, he and Sam flashed their badges instead.

"You don't look like FBI," Mrs. Vega said, eyeing their jeans and t-shirts skeptically.

"We're specialists," Dean said, settling down on the plastic-covered couch. He repressed a shudder at the colorful painting of the sacred heart of Jesus that hung over the mantelpiece. "They don't make the geniuses conform to the dress code." The last word came out as a yelp because Sam kicked him in the ankle. Dean shot him a nasty look that promised retribution later.

"I've already told the police and the FBI everything," she said, one hand clutching the locket she wore around her neck.

"Please, Mrs. Vega," Sam said, giving her the moist puppy dog eyes. "Is there anything you might have left out? Anything that sounded strange or crazy? Or anything you didn't think was relevant?"

"Whatever you can tell us will help," Dean added. He got up and looked around, surreptitiously checking for EMF, especially near the creepy religious painting, but again, there was nothing.

"Bernice is--was a good girl. I know some of her friends are wild, but not my daughter. They were all planning to go to Mexico for spring break, but she's going to Honduras with Habitat for Humanity. She just mailed away for her passport the day before she," Mrs. Vega's voice broke, "went missing. She was so excited." She sniffed, unable to hold back the tears, and Sam handed her the box of tissues from the coffee table. She inclined her head gracefully. "Thank you."

"No, thank you, Mrs. Vega," Sam said, rising and nodding at Dean. "We're sorry to have bothered you, and again, we're sorry for your loss."

Dean listened to him mouth the platitudes they'd learned when most other kids hadn't even buried their first beloved pet, and though he knew Sam was sincere, he could also see he wasn't focused on them; he'd already moved on in his head to something else.

Mrs. Vega didn't notice though. She clasped his hand and thanked them again. "I'll be praying you catch my daughter's killer," she said.

Dean waited until they were outside to mutter, "Like that's gonna help." He wasn't surprised that Sam didn't chide him. "So there's no EMF at any of the girls' houses. They're not haunting their families, and the Feds are probably right--they weren't taken from their homes. So basically, we learned nothing we didn't already know."

Sam shrugged as they got back into the car. "I'm not gonna say I told you so."

"Except for how you just did."

"Oh, yeah." Sam grinned, looking more like himself than he had for a while. "Except for that."

Dean snorted, feeling lighter than he had all day. "Let's go eat, Sam. I'm starving."

"So what else is new?"

Dean grinned in response.

*

After a dinner at the local Hooters (as much as Dean had wanted Mexican, he didn't want to be stuck with a gassy Sam all night while they were working), they still had some time to kill, so Sam napped, or gave a bad impression of it, while Dean cleaned the weapons and watched some Lifetime Christmas movie about magical figure skates that made him want to blow his own head off. Still better than the nightmares, though. And this way, he didn't have to worry about waking up and finding Sam gone.

It was after midnight when they slipped into the morgue, and even with the Feds in town, security was lax. The hospital security guard was snoozing at his desk and the morgue wasn't even up on his monitors. They snuck past him without any trouble, took the elevator to the basement, and then they were in the cool tiled room that stank of formaldehyde and blood. Dean shone his flashlight over the refrigerated drawers, looking for the remains, while Sam rifled the desk and the computer for the casefiles.

Dean found what he was looking for and set the plastic bins down on the autopsy table. He dumped the bones out onto the metal table and gave them a cursory examination. Sam was better at the forensics stuff than he was; all Dean could say for sure was that the bones had been flayed clean, most likely with a razor sharp blade, and he didn't like the memories that called up (the soft give of flesh under his hands, blood warm and sticky on his skin). He forced himself not to shudder, swallowed down the hint of bile rising in his throat, and concentrated instead on sprinkling the bones with salt. He pulled the container of lighter fluid and a box of wooden matches from his duffle and set them on the counter, softly humming "Sad But True" under his breath.

"Hold it right there." The lights flicked on and he looked up to see Special Agent Swofford pointing a gun at him. "You're under arrest for breaking and entering, impersonating federal agents, and tampering with evidence."

Sam was up and at Dean's side like a flash, face tight with anger and determination.

Dean shot her a mocking grin. "That all you got?"

"Once we've gone over the forensics, I'm sure we'll be adding kidnapping, murder, and possibly rape to the list of charges, but it'll do for now," she said, voice steady and contemptuous. "Put your guns on the floor."

"You've got the wrong guys," Sam said, and though he did as he was told, Dean could feel him tensing for action. "We're just reporters."

"Named Barrett and Gilmour. I remember. I thought you'd be more British. And more talented."

"Hey," Dean said, but Sam nudged him in the ribs before he could defend his own talents.

"Put your hands on your heads." Swofford pulled out two pairs of cuffs. She made the same mistake most law enforcement made when it came to the Winchesters, and tossed the first pair to Sam. "Barrett, or should I call you Sam? Please cuff your brother."

"Kinky," Dean said, giving Sam a warning look and ignoring the chill that ran down his spine. "Where's your backup?" Swofford didn't respond. "Couldn't get anyone to come with you?"

"No one believed that you were who I said you were."

"Well, we _are_ supposed to be dead," Sam said with an epic frown. He grabbed Dean's wrist with less gentleness than Dean might have hoped for.

"Though as you can see, rumors of our deaths have been greatly exaggerated." Dean grinned. "I've always wanted to say that."

Sam's long fingers twisted hard on his wrist. That was gonna leave a mark. "Dean." It was his shut up, Dean, I have a plan voice, but Dean didn't actually get to find out what the plan was, because the lights started flickering.

"Are you doing that?" Swofford asked, and for the first time, she sounded uncertain, afraid. "Stop doing that."

"It's not us," Dean said. His breath misted in the air, and he bit off a quiet but heartfelt, "Fuck." He hadn't noticed the chill because it was a fucking _morgue_, and now the ghost was materializing behind Swofford, red sweatshirt and brown pigtails, just like the victims had described. Dean didn't get a good look at her face, but based on the description, Sam had been pretty sure it was Blanca Gutierrez.

The ghost passed through Swofford and she shivered, real fear on her face. Sam planted himself in front of her, hands help up in the universal 'we come in peace' position. Dean was ready with the shotgun, just in case.

"What are you doing?" Swofford demanded, not sure where to point her gun.

"Blanca?" Sam called out the empty air, ignoring Swofford and her gun. "Can you tell us what happened to you?"

The ghost rematerialized, lights flickering and papers swirling in the cold air she trailed behind her. Dean could hear her whispering, hissing syllables that raised the hair on the back of his neck. "Luz roja," she said over and over, the words echoing oddly in the large space.

"I don't understand," Sam said, but the ghost just kept repeating herself, getting more and more worked up when Sam didn't give her the response she was looking for. The cabinets shook, the lights blew out, and the bones rattled on the metal autopsy table like dice in a cup.

When words started appearing on the walls like they were painted in blood, Swofford was freaked out enough to shoot. Even with all the noise the ghost made, the shot was loud and shocking. The wind died down for a moment, and then started up again, fiercer and colder.

"Regular bullets don't work on ghosts," Sam shouted over the noise.

"Ghosts?" Swofford's eyebrow arched, like she wasn't buying it, but her voice rose sharply with fear. "Seriously?"

"I shit you not," Dean said, all mockery gone. "We are dealing with a ghost. One of the dead girls."

"It's Blanca Gutierrez," Sam said, as she materialized again, flinging Swofford against the desk and sending the monitor crashing to the floor.

Dean and Sam lunged for their supplies at the same time. "Get down," he shouted at Swofford, raising the shotgun and hitting the ghost with a load of rock salt. He tossed the shotgun to Sam, who reloaded and took aim, while Dean fumbled for the lighter fluid and the matches.

"What the hell are you doing?" Swofford repeated, straightening up and brushing rock salt off her shoulders.

"Taking care of problem number one," Dean said, squirting the bones with lighter fluid and dropping a match on top of them. That didn't seem to affect the ghost, which flickered out again as Sam blasted it with rock salt. Dean finished salting the second and third sets of bones and tossed the canister of salt at Swofford, who caught it warily. "Draw a circle large enough for you and Sam to stand in," he ordered, "and stay in it until this is done."

She gave him a skeptical look but did as he said, putting the salt down and drawing her gun again when she was done. Sam stepped into the circle with her and wrapped his hand around the barrel of the gun, lowering it and shaking his head. "You're just pissing her off."

Dean nodded. "She's trying to tell us what killed her."

"But ghosts aren't rational," Sam said, picking up the explanation while Dean lit the remaining bones. "They're, like, echoes, shadows of who they were in life. They get locked into a loop sometimes, and you can't really communicate with them." He shot at it again, and then the flames took hold and the ghost of Blanca Gutierrez dissipated in a puff of smoke.

"But a little bit of salt and some fire, and the ghosts go bye-bye," Dean said as he packed up their supplies.

The sprinklers came on, and Dean bit back a sigh. The lukewarm water actually felt pretty good against his skin, but he wasn't sticking around to get soaked. He hated wearing wet jeans--the chafing was a real bitch.

"It's been real, Georgia," he said, giving her a grin he didn't really feel as he pushed his way out of the morgue, "but we've gotta haul ass before the cops show up."

"I _am_ the cops."

"And a real shame that is, too, sweetheart."

"You've completely compromised all the evidence in this investigation," she said, faint whining tone in her voice as she followed them out into the deserted hallway. She reminded Dean of a librarian he'd fucked once, who'd complained afterward about the mess he'd made of her stacks.

"You just saw the ghost of one of your murder victims, and you're hung up on the evidence?" Dean said incredulously. "Whatever's killing them isn't human, so it doesn't matter anyway."

"You don't know that," she said, voice rising and then modulating as she got herself under control. "We have a number of credible suspects--"

"Oh, yeah?" Sam asked, looking back at her over his shoulder. "Who's on the list now that you've crossed us off?"

"Who says I've crossed you off?"

Sam stopped and turned to loom over her. "If you haven't, you're taking an awful big risk right now, aren't you?"

She raised her chin and glared up at him. Dean had to give her props for that; not many people went toe-to-toe with Sam these days.

"Sam," he said, and Sam shook his head and started walking again, annoyance clear in the set of his shoulders and the clench of his jaw.

Swofford's phone rang and when she stopped to answer it, they left her behind.

"What the hell, Sam?" Dean asked when she was out of earshot.

"We can't afford to get locked up again, Dean, and she seems immune to your charms." Sam tossed his duffle into the car on top of Dean's, and lowered the trunk with an annoyed snap of his wrist.

"Hey." There wasn't much else Dean could say. It's not like Sam was wrong about the going to jail thing, anyway.

"There's been another kidnapping," Swofford announced as she pushed through the door behind them. They were in the parking lot, out by the dumpsters full of medical waste. "Octavia Fuentes, eighteen. She went out this afternoon to pick up her mother's medication, and never made it home."

"And?" Sam said.

Swofford took a deep breath. "I'm going to talk to her mother now. If you really think this is some kind of--creature, there will be things you would pick up that I'd miss."

Dean wasn't sure he'd heard correctly. "You want us to come with you?"

"Yes." She shook her head. "I'm still not sure I believe you, but after what I just saw, I don't want to take chances." She walked over to the black SUV parked by the emergency entrance.

"We can take our car," Dean started, but her glare shut him up. "Fine, but I'm driving."

"You can sit in the back," she said.

"What?"

She shrugged a shoulder. "Sam's taller. He needs the legroom more."

Sam smirked and slipped into the front seat. Dean muttered some unflattering things about him and Swofford both.

"What was that?" she said, giving him another icy look.

"Nothing," he answered hastily and climbed into the backseat. When they didn't go anywhere, he said, "Aren't we in kind of a hurry here?"

"Put your seatbelt on."

He opened his mouth, but Sam caught his eye in the rearview mirror, so he sighed and buckled himself in. "Fine, but I just want it on record that I don't like any of this."

"Are you five?" Swofford said as they pulled out of the parking lot. Sam's laugh was quickly stifled when Dean gave him the evil eye. "Seriously, I mean it. I've met more mature five-year-olds." She looked at Sam. "Is he always like this?"

"Think twice before you answer that, Sam. She may be hot, but I'm still the one you have to go home with."

Sam gave another choked laugh and Dean grinned at him, pleased. "So who are your credible suspects?" Sam asked, managing to sound all-business again, and distract Swofford in the process.

"The profile suggests the murderer is a white male between the ages of twenty and thirty; he probably works in a low-status job, and feels the world owes him more than that. Since it's not being handed to him, he's decided to take it. He's good-looking, or at least charming enough to convince these girls to stop and talk to him long enough for him to grab them. Since we have nothing but bones, we don't know what he does to them before he kills them, but given the victimology and the marks on the bones, we think he's a sexual sadist, which means it's likely that he rapes them before he kills them. Possibly there's some ritualistic aspect that causes him to remove the flesh from the bones."

"You think it really is some kind of Silence of the Lambs thing?" Dean said. "'It rubs the lotion on its skin' and all that shit?"

"Is that any less believable than a--what is it that you suspect, Dean?"

He shifted awkwardly, pulling at the shoulder strap that chafed against his neck. "Could be a shapeshifter, like the one in St. Louis."

"The one that supposedly committed those murders while wearing your face?" It was her turn to look at him in the rearview mirror, one eyebrow raised skeptically.

"Not supposedly. Did." He could see the tension in Sam's shoulders, and he put a hand on the seatbelt buckle, ready to escape if it turned out she wasn't as friendly as she seemed. "You saw the ghost. You know we're not lying."

"And if you've read Henriksen's file, you know about the anomalies in it," Sam said, and Dean could _hear_ him clenching his teeth. "How the deaths _stop_ once we arrive somewhere."

"You've certainly left a trail of dead behind you," she replied. "Agent Henriksen--"

Dean still felt a pang of regret at how that had gone down. "Victor was a good guy. He didn't deserve what happened. Neither did Nancy or the deputy. But we were already gone when Lilith killed them."

She seemed surprised at his use of Henriksen's first name, but instead of mentioning it, she said, "Lilith? The mother of demons?"

Dean blinked, taken aback. He rallied quickly, though. "Spent some time in Sunday school, Agent Swofford?"

She gave a small laugh. "That, too."

"So if you don't believe us, what the hell are we doing here?" Sam asked before Dean could follow up on what that meant.

"I didn't say I didn't believe you. I just--You have to admit, it's a lot to absorb."

"And we're convenient scapegoats if nothing else works out," Dean groused.

"If it truly is something supernatural at work here, I won't do that to you," she said, glancing at Sam and then catching Dean's eye in the mirror again. "You have my word."

For whatever that was worth, Dean thought, but wasn't stupid enough to say.

"Did she tell you what happened?" she asked Sam.

"She was saying luz roja, which means 'red light' in Spanish," Sam said.

"And the writing on the wall?"

"Oscuro. Dark." Sam looked out the window and Dean wondered what he was thinking.

"Well, that's helpful," Dean muttered.

Sam shot him a look that clearly said, I told you so. Dean had a feeling he'd be hearing it frequently when this hunt was over.

They pulled into an apartment complex, the parking lot filled with cop cars. Swofford spoke to the commanding officer on the scene and then led them past the cops without introducing them. Dean was grateful; he didn't think either he or Sam could deal with anymore cops tonight.

Mrs. Fuentes was a tiny woman with long black hair and sad, liquid eyes set deep in her face. She probably wasn't more than forty, and from the pictures on the walls, the stress had clearly done a number on her--she looked like she'd aged ten years. The apartment smelled of fried onions and Dean hoped his stomach wouldn't rumble while they were questioning her.

"I'm Special Agent Swofford, and these are my associates, Agents Barrett and Gilmour."

Mrs. Fuentes inclined her head, and they all settled on the sofa, which was covered with a brown and orange knit afghan that reminded Dean of a blanket they'd had as kids, that had been knitted by one of the nicer landladies they'd had. It had eventually been used to wrap the body of a werewolf before they set it on fire.

"Please tell us everything you know," Agent Swofford said.

"Octavia went out at about one to get my medication. She was working the dinner shift at Applebee's--she's a waitress there--so I asked her to go before she went to work. She called me from the parking lot and asked if there was anything else I needed, since it was less crowded than usual."

"Where was this?"

"Walgreens." Mrs. Fuentes took a sip of her tea. "The twenty-four hour one on El Paseo Road. I told her to pick me up some film--I know everything is digital these days, but I like my old Minolta--and the whole family is going to be here for Christmas Eve." She started crying again, and Swofford moved to sit next to her and pat her shoulder consolingly.

Dean glanced at Sam, who gave an almost imperceptible shrug. Mrs. Fuentes continued to cry and Agent Swofford continued to comfort her, but Dean got up and walked the small apartment, EMF meter in hand. Sam looked at him and he shook his head. Nothing.

When Swofford had wrapped up the interview, they headed back out to the SUV, once again avoiding the cops.

"Okay, boys, spill. What was with all the significant glances in there?"

Dean shrugged. "There was no sign of anything supernatural, if that's what you mean. No EMF, no cold spots, no smell of sulfur. Hasn't been in any of the other houses either."

"We were in that Walgreens yesterday," Sam said, actually answering the question, "getting our passport pictures taken."

Swofford looked at him sharply. "You're wanted fugitives. Why would you--" She flipped open her phone. "Eng, it's Swofford. Yeah, I know. Where did Bernice Vega get her passport photos taken? That's where he's finding them. We're headed there now." She hung up and punched the address into her GPS before wheeling them back out into the street. "Greg Urevich was on the list of credible suspects. He works at the photo kiosk there."

Dean remembered the sour-faced guy who'd told him to stand up straight. "Huh." He looked at Sam, who looked as bemused as Dean felt. "He told the lady in front of us he was an amateur photographer. He was definitely kind of skeezy." Sam's look changed from bemused to incredulous, but Dean chose to ignore that. Dean knew from skeezy guys.

"Luz roja," Sam said. "Red light in a darkroom. Where he developed his pictures. Blanca was trying to tell us."

The Walgreens wasn't far from the Fuentes apartment, and they'd just rounded the corner onto El Paseo Road when a girl ran out in front of the SUV, screaming and waving her hands.

"Help me, please! Ayúdeme! He's trying to kill me!" the girl yelled.

There was a car bearing down on her from the opposite direction, headlights flaring, and Swofford swung the SUV around hard, T-boning it.

For a few seconds, Dean's ears rang with the impact. His lip stung from where he'd bitten through it; he could taste blood. He swallowed it down and said, "Sam? You all right?" He didn't even try to disguise the fear in his voice.

"I'm okay, Dean. You?"

Dean's neck hurt a little from the collision, but that and the split lip felt like the only damage he'd taken. "I'm good. Georgia?"

She pushed herself upright, fighting her way free of the airbag and her seatbelt. "I'm all right. We have to--" She gestured with her gun. "That's him."

The driver's side door was bashed in on Urevich's car, but he was scrambling out the passenger side, even more wobbly than they were, but still trying to make a break for it.

Dean looked at the damage to both vehicles and muttered, "Man, I am so glad we didn't take my car."

"Dean." Sam's voice was sharp and brought Dean back to the matter at hand. He shook his head. Maybe he was a little shaken up by the accident.

He unbuckled and jumped out, making a grab for the sobbing girl. "It's okay," he said. "Octavia, right?" She nodded, clearly trying to get her crying under control. He brushed her hair behind her ear and offered her a mostly clean napkin he had in his pocket. "It's okay," he repeated. "We're with the FBI." Sam glanced at him and Dean waved him off. "Go," he said.

Sam drew his gun and chased after Swofford, who'd already taken off down the street after Urevich.

Dean lifted her up into the backseat of the SUV and kept an eye on her. Her shirt was torn and it looked like the button on her jeans had been ripped off. He had to swallow bile down again, and ransacked his brain for something to say.

He came up with, "Except for the shiner, you look just like your mom." She gave him a brief half-smile, still leaking tears, and he patted his pockets, looking for another napkin and coming up empty. "It's gonna be all right," he said, grateful for once for the sound of sirens in the distance, the flashing lights coming around the corner.

"He wanted to--he was going to--" She swallowed hard, one hand pressed to her belly, the other to her mouth, muffling the words. "But I kneed him in the groin and he couldn't. That's why he gave me this." She pressed her fingertips to the bruise swelling black and yellow under her eye.

"Sick bastard," Dean muttered. "Don't worry. We've got him now. He's going away for a very long time."

She nodded, still hiccupping into the soaked napkin, and wiped her nose on her forearm when the napkin didn't do the trick.

Sam and Swofford came back, dragging Urevich between them, his hands cuffed behind him, dirt and blood staining the front of his clothes. Sam looked disheveled and a little gimpy, like he'd had to wrestle Urevich down, but he gave Dean a genuine, if small, smile.

"You okay?" Dean asked.

"Yeah. Had to tackle him. My knees are probably scraped to hell, but I'm okay."

"Thanks for all your help," Swofford said. "I really appreciate it." She nodded her chin at the arriving cops and Feds. "You should probably go now, before someone recognizes you."

"See you around, Georgia." Dean tossed her a half-salute and she grinned.

"Maybe you will, Dean."

*

It was a long walk back to the hospital where the car was parked, but the temperature had dropped a little with the darkness, so it was comfortably cool after the heat of the day and all the excitement.

Dean couldn't stop thinking about the bones, about how something _human_ had done that, flensed the flesh away like he was cleaning a fish for dinner.

Once they got back to the motel room, he sat Sam down on the bed and knelt down to clean the scrapes on his knees. Dean teased him absently about still being a clumsy six-year-old, and not just because it was expected. Sam took it with sleepy good humor, and Dean could almost imagine things were okay, or that they at least could be, someday. He heaved himself to his feet when he was done, feeling every minute of the extra forty years he carried, even in his fully healed body.

Sam stopped him, wrapped long fingers around his wrist, their warmth a familiar comfort he hadn't realized he'd missed. "Thanks, Dean."

Dean reached out and ruffled his hair, smiling as Sam ducked away in annoyance. "Any time, Sammy."

He let Sam have the first shower so he didn't have to be quick when it was his turn. He turned the water as hot as he could and scrubbed his skin until it was red and blotchy. He waited until Sam was asleep to pull out his flask, but his nightmares were full of screams and blood spray, and he only slept for four fitful hours before giving it up as a loss.

He went for a run, took another shower, and packed up their stuff while he waited for dawn to arrive. He'd read his way through the local paper and all the word jumbles and sudoku squares in it by the time Sam rolled over and rubbed the sleep out of his eyes. Sam looked like he was going to say something, but when Dean gave him a curious look, he just shook his head and went to the bathroom, closing the door behind him with a definite click. Which was fine by Dean, because he definitely did not want to talk about anything that could lead to any more unfortunate confessions.

They were in the diner next to the motel, waiting for the waitress to take their order, when Agent Swofford came in and slid into the booth next to him.

"Morning, boys," she said, signaling the waitress for her own cup of coffee. "You're up bright and early."

"We like to get an early start," Sam said.

"And check-out's at ten," Dean added.

She nodded and added two sugars to her newly-arrived mug of coffee. "I wanted to thank you again," she said after the waitress had taken their order.

"Even if we really did fuck up the evidence?" Dean asked. "I mean, the bones don't burn to ash at such a low temperature, but I really hope the medical examiner at least took pictures of the marks on them, because I'm pretty sure they're compromised now, or whatever."

"The bones will definitely be a problem," Swofford admitted. "A good defense attorney will make the case that they've been tampered with, and that they should be inadmissible. But there was plenty of DNA evidence from the girls in the bomb shelter where he was keeping them, and in the trunk of his car. Plus, there were pictures of what he did tacked up on the walls all over the place."

"He took pictures?" Sam said, looking as nauseated as Dean felt.

Swofford nodded. "Sexual sadists often take trophies to help them relive their kills. It's how they get off." She put her mug down and rubbed away the lipstick mark she'd left on it. "And Octavia Fuentes will testify."

"I hope so," Sam said. "Arizona has the death penalty, right? They should fire up old sparky just for him."

Dean glanced at him, surprised.

"Don't worry, Urevich will rot in hell, just like he deserves, when we get done with him." Swofford's mouth quirked in a rueful half-grin.

Dean couldn't suppress his shiver, fingers tightening around his mug, and Sam's foot nudged his ankle gently under the table, weirdly comforting.

"Yeah," Sam said, because Dean couldn't.

"How do you stand it?" Dean asked, voice slightly rough even after a long slug of coffee. She raised an eyebrow, and he said, "What we hunt, ninety-five percent of the time, these bastards don't have a choice--they do what they do because of what they _are_; they can't help themselves, and putting them down is the only option. But you, you're dealing with sick fucks who could do this kind of thing--" He gestured with his mug. "How do you not say fuck 'em all and go live on a beach somewhere?"

Swofford leaned forward and held his gaze. "Because for all the evil I've seen, I've seen grace and kindness in the most unexpected places." He snorted and she slapped his hand, hard enough to get his attention but not enough to really hurt. "Because good men like you and Sam exist." He opened his mouth, not even sure what he was going to say beyond some dumb pick up line to deflect her, but she kept talking. "And no, I'm not sleeping with you."

"Can't blame a guy for trying," he said, giving her a shrug and a half-hearted grin. "So, you're a Pink Floyd fan, huh?"

She laughed. "From way back. I inherited all my brother's cassettes when he got a CD player--Floyd and Zeppelin and, though it pains me to admit it, let alone listen to it, Yes's entire discography."

Sam snorted, but Dean said, "Sounds like he's got good taste. Well, except for the Yes. Older brother?"

"Oldest, yeah. I've got three."

Dean nodded. It made sense of how she'd stood up to Sam last night.

"Take care of yourselves," she said, taking one last sip of her coffee.

"If you ever come across anything weird, give us a call," Sam said, handing her a card with their phone numbers on it.

"Don't take this the wrong way," she said, "but I hope I never have to."

Dean's smile felt real this time, felt right on his face. "I hope so, too," he said. She stood and shouldered her briefcase, then leaned down and pressed a soft kiss to his cheek. She smelled like coffee and baby powder; Dean filed that away for future reference. "Seriously, don't get yourselves killed." She squeezed Sam's shoulder on her way out.

"She's pretty cool for a Fed," Dean said when the door closed behind her.

Sam nodded and played with the torn sugar packets on the tabletop. He shifted, sat up straighter in the booth. "You're nothing like Urevich, Dean."

Dean froze. "What?"

"You did what you had to do to survive. It was _hell_, Dean. Nobody blames you."

Dean forced himself to unclench, unwilling to argue about whether what he'd done could be called _surviving_. "Whatever you say, Sam."

"I mean it."

"We're not talking about this now." Not now, and not ever.

Sam looked away, and Dean could see the muscle twitching in his jaw. "Fine. But I just wanted you to know. _I_ don't blame you."

The waitress showed up with their food then, and Dean turned his attention to his eggs and bacon, though the smell made his stomach twist in disgust. He forced himself to eat, chewing slowly and methodically and not tasting a bite of it.

"It's almost Christmas," Sam said, pushing his pancakes around on his plate. "I was thinking we could maybe go see Bobby."

Dean took a deep breath, let it out slowly. "Yeah," he said. "We could do that."

Sam gave him a wide, bright smile that made him look like a little kid again, and Dean's stomach settled.

end

~*~

**Author's Note:**

> The title is a misheard lyric from the song "Deep Red Bells" by Neko Case.


End file.
